


in magnificent glow

by greenapples



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M, aeons ago i was in this fandom, also this was in response to a prompt, arthur and gwen are In Love, lots of cosmic nonsense here btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 05:38:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12248085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenapples/pseuds/greenapples
Summary: "I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time."- Jack London(listen this was the prompt given, i went in as blindly as you are now)





	in magnificent glow

They lay in the grass, the smell of green in her nose and the taste of his kiss in her mouth. His hand feels the same, always the same, and yet it isn't. In her mind's eye she tries to see him as he is here on the blanket, as he could have been on that boat sailing into the mist.   
  
She fails, she only sees him as he was and has always been.  
  
They say the stars are burning memories, these dead things shining and twinkling down at them from long lost pasts, unbroken by time's passing, undaunted by the feeble existence of these mayfly mortals. Sometimes she wonders if the stars know how much they mean to these silly humans who think themselves so important, are so arrogant that their destinies, their entire futures would be spelled out on those bright, distant dots in the night sky. Was _their_ destiny written there? Did such encryption happen when the stars were born or when they finally consumed themselves in a burning blaze?  
  
'Stop it', he says, hand squeezing hers. The same hand she knows so well. 'I can hear you thinking from over here'.  
  
She sighs, 'won't be long now, I think'. She turns a looks at him, eyes closed and mouth turned up at the edges, his skin is warm when she presses her fingers to the pulse point on his neck. He opens his eyes.  
  
'Gwen. Please'.  
'It's just-' she doesn't finish, instead she looks back to the sky.  
'I know'. Up on his elbow now, looking at her, feeling her breathe with his palm flat on her ribcage. This too is an old habit.  
  
She fancies him a comet, unstoppable, trailing debris and people along his path wherever he goes, whenever he goes. His kisses are warm and overwhelming, when he seals his mouth over hers, alive in every stroke of his tongue and she feels wound tight. So close now to the end.   
  
They also say every end is a new beginning. She wishes they'd shut up.  
  
Gwen snakes a hand under his shirt, touching blood-warm skin. No scars this time 'round. And yet the patterns are there, her fingers swirling and tracing, drawing wells and dips she knows had been there once. How can this man still be her Arthur? And yet.  
  
'I will find you again, Gwen', his voice is harsh, broken. 'I always do'.  
'You will. You always do'.  
  
She lets him lift up her skirt, pulls him to her, on top of her, now now now, don't wait. No time to wait. He gasps when he enters her, she's not ready for him, she doesn't care. Tells him so with her hips and her lips and her hands. And then it's all rhythm, push-pull, drag-press, this dance as old as time and maybe the only thing they have any right to remember so clearly at all. He still buries his face in her neck, still cups the underside of her knee, still makes her shiver and quake just by _breathing_ on the right place. They are still Arthur and Guinevere, as young as they were when they died that first time. As old as Morgana could make them ever be.  
  
'I don't think she meant it to work quite like this', he tells her afterward, his arm a comforting weight over her stomach. She borrows closer to him.  
'No, she couldn't have', the bitterness has not faded one bit over the years, and she feels wretched because it _was_ a gift, a forgive-me note Morgana stuck on their foreheads when Arthur fell and Gwen felt like the sky had fallen too. Morgana's farewell gift. Somehow Gwen thought they'd find her again, Morgana, and maybe Merlin too, but no, that was not how it was intended to be. How _was_ it intended to be, then? This endless wheel of lives and deaths and ends and beginnings?  
  
'Maybe we're like those stars, Arthur. Maybe we've been dead all along but somehow we cannot see it, cannot know because we're still warm'.  
  
He gives her a look. She blushes and says it doesn't matter, he should ignore her, she's being silly. He tells her she's never been silly and he's never been able to ignore her. They kiss again. They make love again. They watch the stars again and continue to burn bright, to never die.  
  
Gwen wonders if they are living at all


End file.
